chin up
by ink-stained dreams
Summary: It starts and ends in summer. It's the middle part that's hard. Victoire/Teddy. oneshot


**This is...incredibly long. Over 6,00 words. My longest oneshot to date. I only set out to write a story about Victoire based on the lyrics below, because they just kept resonating with me and fit her so well, and somehow it turned into this Victoire&Teddy epic. **

**Anyway, my audition piece for the Fanfiction Idol Competition, and my interpretion of Vicky and Teddy. Hope you guys enjoy. Don't forget to drop some reviews! :)**

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><p><em>everybody knows that<br>__you'd break your neck to keep your chin up  
><em>—**chin up, copeland**

* * *

><p>When she squirms in her silken blankets, eyes blueblueblue like the morning sky, little baby-soft fingers reaching for the huge faces hanging above her, they all coo, "What a beautiful baby she is." And she can't hear or understand them, but she gurgles and laughs because they are all smiling moon-wide smiles and it's all for her.<p>

When she scampers through the summer-golden fields outside the Burrow, a freshly-wound crown of daisies in her hair, they all sit on the porch and say, "What a lovely child she is." She's too far away to hear, so she just laughs and spins; her hair—still bright with childhood—fans around her like a halo.

When she sits at the long, family table crowded with people, her hands crossed on her lap and her loose curls darkened with shots of strawberry and ginger, they grin at her and compliment, "What a pretty girl she is." And she's a good girl, too, so she smiles softly and blushes but she grasps onto that word and holds it close(tooclose). _Pretty. I am pretty. _

"Lucky Victoire," they say. "She's so lucky to be so pretty."

No one warns her.

("_Poor, poor girl. She's far too pretty for her own good_.")

* * *

><p>The first time they meet each other, he's one and she's only an infant, and it's only because he promised to be a good boy that he gets to meet his new cousin.<p>

He holds Aunt Ginny's hand tight as they approach Aunt Fleur and New Baby Cousin, his hair going brown with uncertainty. What exactly does one do when meeting a New Cousin? He stands up on tiptoe to peer over the circle of Aunt Fleur's arms, his little snub nose resting on her skin as he stares wide-eyed at the round pale thing swaddled in blankets.

"Meet Victoire, Teddy," Aunt Fleur says, oh-so-softly, as if she's afraid of talking too loud.

Victoire wriggles and turns, looking at him with huge blue eyes that fill up his whole vision. They shock him with their clarity, and his hair snaps back to turquoise.

Then it darkens with pain.

"Ow!" he squeals, wrenching his head from Victoire's grabbing, yanking little hand. He rubs his head where she pulled at his hair, glowering at her.

Her face breaks into a sloppy-baby grin, and she laughs at the boy with the strange, changing hair.

Of course, this isn't quite relevant to the story of him and her, because how could either of them really remember it?

(Then again, neither of them quite forget it.)

* * *

><p>The first time they get to know each other properly is at one of those had-too-many-to-keep-track-of-Potter-Weasley-plus-Lupin-of-course gatherings. She's all child at only four years old, and he's desperately trying not to be child at the high and mighty age of five. (<em>That's practic'ly grown up, <em>he'll say huffily. _Hafway to ten. Practic'ly grown up._) All the children—which is to say, her and him, because James is only two and Dominique is only one, so the mothers quail at the very thought of letting them outside into the rough-and-tumble world of little-kid play—so to revise, _Victoire_ and _Teddy _are shooed into that famous Burrow backyard to "have fun." (Which is to say, continue the time-honored tradition of stirring up all kinds of trouble.)

"'m Teddy," he proclaims, thrusting out a hand. Bold; straight; to-the-point. It catches her attention. (Never lets go, really, does it?)

"Victoire," she answers, and with eyes bigbluewide she holds out four fingers. "I'm four."

Teddy looks at her hand, and he looks at his hand. "You're s'pposed to shake my hand, Victoire."

She moves her stare to his outstretched limb. "Oh." Hesitantly, she puts her hand in his.

Teddy smiles and shakes it firmly. "Y'see?" His voice jumps with childish excitement. "Now we know each other."

His smile is infectious. She grins back, swaying in her new dress. "Y'wanna play a game?"

"'Course!"

Hours later and the two of them are still romping in the yard. Their parents manage to tear them apart, but not before a pact has been made to be friends forever.

(And that's really how it always starts, isn't it?)

* * *

><p>She is ten, and she is <em>not <em>pleased.

"But I want to _go_!" she whines, her slender brows pulled together thunderously. "_Teddy's _going, so why can't _I _go?"

Bill Weasley sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. This has been going on for a solid twenty minutes, and he's starting to get a headache. His oldest daughter tends to have that effect sometimes. "_Because_, sweetie, you're not old enough yet. Teddy is eleven: that's why he's going to Hogwarts."

Victoire narrows her eyes to blue slits, opening her mouth to say something angry and childlike. Then without warning, she changes tactics, turning on the full power of her pouty charm.

"_Please_, Daddy?"

Bill laughs and shakes his head at her. She deflates into a sulking child again. "I can't change the rules, honey. Besides, it's only a year."

Victoire heaves a sigh steeped in melodrama, but she concedes, "Only a year."

* * *

><p>The anxiety bites and claws and roils through her stomach, no mercy, no survivors, pushing up gooseflesh across her skin. <em>What House? Where will I be? Wherewherewhere? <em>until the thoughts have no words anymore, just tangled strands and four colors fighting for dominance. But she is _Victoire Adrienne Weasley_, thank you very much, so she simply smoothes her skirt and tucks a straying lock behind her ear. She is coolcalmcollected. (She is pretty.) She will not make a fool of herself.

"Weasley, Victoire!"

She breathes in through her nose and ascends the steps like she owns them. She pretends that she has never heard of nerves, let alone be _affected _by them. She sits down. The hat's inner rim, worn smooth with time, settles around the crown of her head.

Victoire sees a messy turquoise spot among the throngs of heads, and she cannot help but smile as he waves at her from the Gryffindor table. She closes her eyes and wishes for red and gold with all her might.

"Gryffindor!"

And the thoughts have no words, only warm glows and brightness.

She's only eleven, and she's filled to the brim with joy, so she rockets down the steps to _her _table. The hall is filled with whoops and hollers as Gryffindor welcomes her in. She fairly jumps into the seat beside Teddy, and her beaming grin speaks everything for her.

(He doesn't say it, but her brilliance takes his breath away.)

* * *

><p>Their first fight happens much later than she expected. They're all smiles and balmy weather until her second year and his third, and then the rocks leap up beneath their hulls, dragging tears and throwing them off course.<p>

"What's _wrong _with you, Teddy?" she huffs, trying to keep up with the disgruntled boy pushing through the halls ahead of her.

"Nothing."

"Honestly, Ted, you're a rotten liar."

"I said it was _nothing_, Vicky." He's even more annoyed now, she can tell, even without his hair changing. His arms are tight and he won't look at her.

"And Weasleys aren't redheads," she replies mockingly, calling his bluff.

"Just drop it, will you?" he snaps and whips around to face her. Victoire pulls up short as he leans over her, the lines of his face hard and angry. He holds her stare for a moment and then whirls back around, continuing his hurried pace.

His irate response inflames her own Weasley temper—that and the fact that he won't give her what she wants. Her voice goes bitter as she shoots back, "Well, _obviously _it's not nothing if you wouldn't say hardly two words to me at the table, totally ignore me in front of your friends, mock everything I say, and snap at me when _all _I want to know why my best friend—" She snags his shoulder and drags him to a stop, forcing him to face her. "—is in such a bloody bad mood." Victoire's delicate nostrils flare and her blue eyes burn dangerously.

Teddy breathes heavily, pursing his lips. The tips of his hair start to turn a fiery orange-red. "You're a real brat, sometimes, _Victoire_, you know that?" He drags out her full name, somehow making it sound like an insult. And for some reason, it feels like one. Her stomach turns over cold and her cheeks burn. "I don't have to tell you everything that's going on in my head all the time."

"Well if you weren't being such a _jerk, _maybe I wouldn't ask!"

He rubs one hand over his face furiously; the angry color has bled further towards his crown.

"Why do you avoid me all the time?" She doesn't mean for it to happen, but her voice breaks on the word "avoid." She's trying so hard to be ragingfumingwild, but underneath the fire there is a little trembling heart cold and weak with fear.

"Because you're kid, and I don't want to hang out with you anymore!" he blurts. The words sink in between them for a moment, and then he realizes what he said and what it means and suddenly he's all turquoise hair and wide eyes, mortified.

But it's true, because here they are, only a year apart but two worlds away. Teenager and child.

The trembling heart shudders and breaks, but she is _Victoire Adrienne Weasley_, so she yells, "Fine!" and pushes past him, radiant and burning.

She doesn't look back, and she hopes he stares until she's out of sight.

* * *

><p>It takes a long and painful month for him to apologize, because he isn't anything if not stubborn.<p>

Victoire hold the slip of parchment between her slender hands, staring at the remorseful words in his slanting hand. Her gaze lingers on _Love, Teddy_.

Love, Teddy.

And she crumples the note up and throws it away, because she is even more stubborn than he is.

* * *

><p>Summer rolls around, and the family get-togethers are in full swing. So it's unavoidable that they'll bump—get shoved, really, judging by Aunt Ginny and her mother's innocent-but-not smiles—into each other.<p>

They end up side by side at the snack table. Teddy's holding a cup of pumpkin juice, and his face goes awkwardly blank when he sees her. He swallows his mouthful of juice painfully.

"Vicky."

She lifts her chin and stares him down coldly. "Theodore."

He winces and says, "Ouch. Still mad, are you?"

Victoire doesn't deem that even worth replying to. She turns to face the table and pops a cream puff into her mouth. She chews slowly, pulling out the silence.

"I _did _apologize, Vicky. Remember that? Little note sent by owl, lamenting my poor judgment?"

"I remember throwing it away," she replies as she faces him, and she's all Fleur as she crosses her arms and tosses her hair.

Teddy stifles a snort and looks down.

"What?" she snaps.

He clearly fights down his laughter and faces her. His expression contorts as he tries to stay serious, but within moments he's sniggering again.

"What's so funny about this?" she demands, her irritation mounting.

"You've—" A very un-Teddy-like giggle. "—you're trying to look so angry and…" He laughs again. "And you've got cream all over your face."

"I do not!" But she instinctively reaches a hand up, and sure enough the traitor filling is there, smeared by her mouth. Victoire blushes furiously and grabs for a napkin, wiping it off.

But he's still laughing and she's smiling now, so she can't help but forgive him.

* * *

><p>"Just stay <em>out<em> of it, Teddy! It's none of your damn business!" She grabs up a cloak and throws it at him. He catches it.

"I'm only trying to protect you—"

"Yeah?" she snaps, and it sounds almost hysterical. "Well, newsflash, Ted, I'm bloody fifteen years old, and _I don't need protecting_!" A book becomes her next projectile. This time he dodges.

"Will you _stop _throwing things at me?"

"Only if you _go away _and get out of my relationships, you nosy prat!"

He takes a step closer, looking hurt. "I'm your sodding best friend! It's my _job_, you ungrateful harpy."

And despite herself, she laughs. (She's never been very good at staying angry at him. It's kind of a problem, isn't it?)

"There, that's better," he says, smiling.

"Honestly, Teddy, you need to stop interfering in my life and just get one of your own."

"Now where would the fun in that be?" he asks, winking.

"Oh, I don't know, I hear they're quite entertaining," she quips, and just like that, they're back to Victoire&Teddy, bestbest friends, and the question of her relationship is off the table.

But three days later, she dumps what's-his-name, even if she isn't really sure why.

* * *

><p>The first time she gets her heart stomped on, she's sixteen and doesn't see it coming. He was a seventh-year Slytherin, oh-so bad-boy, with just enough of a heart to make him charming. It's all burning passion and mouthonmouth and she starts to think that she might actually really like this one, when he up and leaves. He walks away with a "Sorry," and a gentle explanation. And he really sounds like he means it, which is why she ends up in Common Room at midnight, sobbing her eyes out like the heroine of some teenage melodrama.<p>

Of course, it's Teddy who find her there, because he's always been the one to hold her.

"Honestly, Vicky, there are some people trying to sleep in this building," he says, the admonition punctuated by a yawn. She sputters out a laugh between her tears as he sprawls into the armchair next to her. He gives her a pointed look—his eyes are golden this week. "Well, are you going to give me the dirt, or shall I have to wring it out of you?"

She smiles weakly and makes a pathetic attempt to stop crying. Not surprisingly, it doesn't work. "H-he…he _left_ me, Teddy. Michael ju-just…he _left_." Her face crumples "He kissed me and s-said—he said that I was sw-sweet, really…and, and that I was p-pretty, bu-but…but that it wuh-wasn't _working._" A fresh batch of tears hurtles down her cheeks. "That, that he nuh-needed something _more _in a relationship…" She mops her eyes with a damp handkerchief. "Wh-what _more _is there, Teddy? What duh-don't I _have_?" Victoire meets his gaze desperately.

(And the red skin around her eyes makes them look electric blue, and her rumpled hair glows like strawberries and honey in the firelight and she's _so. damn. beautiful._ but they're only bloody best friends, aren't they?)

"Nothing, Vicky," he says quietly. "He's barking mad—you've got everything."

* * *

><p>He's known for a good long while, but as always, Victoire has yet to notice what's right in front of her face.<p>

It's summer, and the air is warm and golden around them, and they sit underneath the walnut tree, not having to say a thing. She absentmindedly picks at the blades of grass, happy to drink in the silence and the heat.

Teddy Lupin, however, has other ideas. "You know, Vicky, I've never been a believer of that whole 'dumb blonde' thing, but you just might change my mind."

She turns to him, drawing back, her face confused and offended and amused all at once. "Pardon?"

"I mean," he goes on, clearly exasperated, "it's been obvious for, what, about a year now? I was practically screaming it in your face the past couple months." He fixes her with a pitying look (his eyes are green today) and shakes his head in disappointment. "But it seems that it's true what they say: you're just a pretty face."

"Theodore Remus Lupin, would you kindly explain _what _you're talking about?"

He throws his hands up in the air. "Merlin wept! I'm sodding well in love with you, aren't I?"

And she freezes, and for a moment he's deathly, deathly afraid that he's done this all wrong and she'll start stuttering apologies or something—

—but the next moment he's not thinking anything at all. Kissing Victoire Weasley tends to have that effect on people.

* * *

><p>The next three months of her life are full of laughter and sunlight and Teddy, and it makes her happier than she can ever remember. She'll slide her hand into his as they walk along the green-gold fields, she'll <em>know <em>that this is lovelovelove, and she will smile without having any particular reason at all.

She is young and she loves and is loved and she is so very pretty; what is more is there to want?

Of course, summer comes to an end, like all things. They stand amid the din and swirling smoke of Platform 9 ¾, grasping hands and barely inches apart, but threatened by being torn worlds away.

"I don't want to go," she says sullenly, her pink lower lip pushing out slightly. She is not all that different from the ten-year-old she used to be.

Teddy smiles and pushes a lock of pale, strawberry-blonde hair back. "Don't be petulant, Vicky," he scolds. "It's only a year."

Victoire heaves a sigh steeped in melodrama, but she concedes, "Only a year." (this all so familiar, isn't it? shouldn't this worry her?)

He laughs at her and leans in to kiss her smooth brow, but instead she thrusts her face upwards to meet his mouth with her own. As she winds her slender fingers through his chameleon hair, leaning into the arch of his body and crushing their lips together, she is vaguely aware of a gasp and a squeak of surprise. Teddy smiles against her mouth as James scampers off into the steam.

She drinks in all of him that she can, enough to last her a year, and then she tears away, the train whistle ringing in her ears. She smiles at him breathlessly, dancing backwards to the open compartment door. "Don't forget to write, you hear?" she demands. "And don't forget about me once you're out in the big, bad world."

Her cheeks are flushed, and her—now slightly disheveled—bright curls bounce around her face as she continues backwards. She's a lithe, happy figure framed by curling steam and gleaming red-and-gold metal, and he grins. "How could I ever forget you?" he shouts over the second warning cry of the train.

Satisfied, she beams and whirls around, leaping up the steps. She doesn't look back, but he watches the train until it's out of sight.

* * *

><p>The first letter comes a week in, and she tears her eyes over his familiar writing, eating up the warm words. Victoire smiles like a fool, her hands tightening on the parchment. Her gaze lingers on <em>Love, Teddy<em>. She traces the two words with her fingertips. She hurries to scribble a reply, as if the faster she writes the faster they'll be together again.

The second one arrives two weeks later, just as bright and loving as the first. And the third after that, just the same. Back and forth they go, never tiring of professing their love, endlessly reaching for each other across the distance between them. She is more brilliant than ever before, filled to the brim with her joy.

By now she has a pile of well-worn, often-read letters arranged on her bedside table. It's late at night, but she sits hunched over the desk, penning her latest reply. She smiles as she carefully curls the final letters: _Love, Victoire_. She sends it the next morning, watching the large speckled owl until it disappears into the sky.

It takes a month for him to reply this time.

Her heart fairly soars when the bird drops the envelope by her breakfast, her eyes screaming relief as they drink in his angled handwriting again. Her friends laugh at her as she rips the letter open, but she pays them no mind, having attention only for Teddy and his words. Victoire's stomach rings hollow as she unfolds the paper and finds almost half of it blank. The sentences are tinged with brusqueness. (she's trying so hard to be coolcalmcollected, but underneath it all there is a swelling, trembling heart that is all-too-familiar)

"What's wrong, Vicky?"

She looks up at Grace Wood, meeting her friend's concerned brown eyes with a blank gaze. She isn't really there.

"Vicky?"

The blue eyes gain back some clarity as she returns to earth, but they are framed by pulled-together eyebrows and pale cheeks. "Nothing, Grace," she assures. "I was just…expecting more, that's all. Not a big deal, really." (For some reason, though, it feels like one.)

She sends off her reply quickly, packing into it even more love than usual, hoping with all her heart that his last letter was an abnormality. He must have been busy. It's not that he really is forgetting about her now that's out in the big, bad world. (that's justnotpossible. she's _Victoire Adrienne Weasley_, after all.) But still, his next letter takes even longer to arrive. She fills the six weeks with desperate fake smiles and wrung hands, so nervous and dependant that she hardly feels like herself. She has never been crippled like this. She has never been addicted like this.

When she holds the long-awaited envelope in her hands, she can tell by the immaculate curve of the address that something is wrong. The letters are carefully crafted, not like Teddy at all. She tucks the letter away, waving off the protests of the girls around her, who want to hear all about the words of her fairytale prince. The envelope burns in her bag the whole day, singing her finger each time she reaches for a book. It taunts. It throbs.

By the time classes finally let out, she is sore all over from resisting the urge to tear it open. She hurries through the crowded halls, hair streaming behind her and cheeks flushed, wasting no time as she makes her way to the Astronomy Tower.

She wrenches her bag off as she reaches the top, throwing it to the ground and digging past textbooks for the precious package. Her hands tremble as she rips the envelope and draws the paper out. She takes a shuddering breath and unfolds it. It is agonizingly short. For several moments, she just stares at the black on off-white, the words blurring before her eyes, too afraid to actually read it. (the heart trembles, _oh _it trembles)

Victoire sets her lips in a firm line and forces herself to read.

_Dearest Victoire, _

(her fingers clench and she tries not to cry out; this is not right, this is not _Teddy_)

_You're right, there is something bothering me. Trust you to be able to figure it out. You always knew me so well, didn't you? I wish it didn't have to come to this, though. The truth is, I don't think I can do this. You're wonderful, Victoire, you are, and you will always have a place in my heart. You are still my best friend. You always will be. But there's too much separating us. You're still in school and I have to have my freedom. I'm not going to make you wait for me. Please don't take it the wrong way. I'm so sorry it had to come to this._

_I'm so sorry._

_Love,_

_Teddy _

Her gaze lingers on _Love, Teddy_.

Love, Teddy.

(and the déjà vu hits her like a fist to the stomach and why didn't she see this coming?)

Her lips twitch, fightfightfighting to break open and loose the screams building up inside of her. Instead, she takes the letter and she—delicately and oh-so carefully—rips it into tiny pieces. With utmost care, she takes those pieces and she flings them into the fast-approaching night.

Victoire Adrienne Weasley descends the steps of the Astronomy Tower, and she doesn't look back.

* * *

><p>No one says it out loud, but she isn't the same after that. Behinds hands and in hushed whispers, they speak of how very cold her blue eyes have become, how uncomfortably brutal her jokes are now. They murmur of hearts and bruises and scars, but she is <em>Victoire Adrienne Weasley<em>, thank you very much, so she just Cheshire-smiles and gives nothing away.

She has metamorphosed from the flushed and golden summer-child to a pale frozen winter-queen. She tosses her like a blizzard and walks like an empress. (Little Vicky is locked away safe and gone, encased in a coffin of ice-cold steel and frosted glass.) The reflection tells her how pretty she is, and she grasps onto that _one stable thing_ and holds it far too close for comfort.

The first victim falls within days. He tastes like syrup and boyhood and sweat, nothing like Teddy at all, and she _relishes _it. She brings him in and then leaves with a grin that's all shark.

She tears through boys like they're tissue paper.

She has never been more beautiful.

* * *

><p>She finally realizes that she was never cut out to be a lion. She's not heroic and certainly not brave, but she's the very best at pretending, so she just has to <em>pretend <em>that she shines red and gold when all she feels like is _deception_ and _misplaced loyalty_ and _smart in the wrong ways_. Victoire puts her eyes forward and keeps her chin up, because if she's looking ahead she doesn't have to think about being stabbed in the back, right?

* * *

><p>She throws away all the postcards he sends her without a second glance.<p>

* * *

><p>The graduation dinner is held at the Potter house this year; she apparates into the street holding hands with her sister, beside their parents. Bill and Fleur lead the way in, but Dominique pulls her to a stop in the doorway. She slips her hand into her sister's again, squeezing it, asking, "You'll be okay? He's back from Romania now, I hear."<p>

Victoire looks only forward, the blue and green glow of the enchanted lights the only color on her washed-out, emotionless face. Her cheeks and eyes glitter with the luminescence.

"Of course," she says flatly, pulling her hand away. "What is there to be worried about?"

She strides onward into the happy noise, leaving Dominique to stare worried and afraid at the cascade of ginger-tinged blonde locks over ivory shoulders.

Victoire smiles and laughs like joyful girl she's supposed to be; she's gotten so good with masks by now that no one notices. Everyone tells her how pretty she looks in her dress.

They end up standing across from each other in the living room somehow, no matter how hard she tried to put people between them. He is as determined to talk as she is not to.

"It's great to see you again, Vicky."

"Oh, please don't call me that, Theodore. It's such a childish nickname," she insists, smiling hard and sipping from her glass.

A shadow settles into his eyes. "Oh. Well, if it's no trouble to you, _Victoire_, I still prefer Teddy."

"Very well then, Teddy." Her smile hasn't moved an inch.

The silence has just started to chafe when he asks, "So how was your final year at Hogwarts?"

"Just fine."

"And the NEWT classes?"

"I survived, obviously."

His jaw sets and he nods stiffly. (He doesn't say it, but her pleasantness frightens him.) She notices his eyes are a pale purple now. She's about to make her escape when a girl suddenly appears at his side. She clings to his arm, somewhat breathless and bringing with her the scent of musk and lavender. Her green eyes sparkle; she tucks a glossy brunette strand that escaped from her bun behind her ear.

"Your family is exhausting, Teddy," she complains good-naturedly, grinning at him. "There's so many of them!"

Teddy moves his gaze away from Victoire and to the new arrival. "I did warn you, love."

Victoire, very carefully, keeps her gentle smile in place. "Won't you introduce us, Teddy?"

The girl turns towards her, grinning apologetically. Before Teddy can speak, she cuts in, "Oh, I'm so sorry. How rude of me. I'm Helen, Teddy's girlfriend." She extends a hand.

Victoire shakes it demurely, thinking of ice and daggers. "Victoire," she responds.

"What a lovely name!" she exclaims, and she's so bright and happy and her hands are so comfortably wound around Teddy's forearm and Victoire is choking on the scent of lavender—

"Thank you. I'd love to stay and chat, but would you please excuse me?"

"Of course. Pleasure meeting you, Victoire!" Helen chirps after her, but Victoire has already disappeared into the colors and the sound and the utter safety of not feeling anything at all.

(_she's not even that pretty_, she thinks. _definitely not a pretty as me_)

* * *

><p>"You go away, Theodore Lupin, you go away <em>right now<em>," she orders, one imperious hand pointed back where he came from, where water hits the asphalt in percussive rhythm, painting the world all sorts of black and grey.

He gringrimaces at her words, shivering, his bright hair dripping into his golden eyes. "You didn't even let me say anything, Vic—"

"I don't _care_," she says coldly, her eyes two frozen lakes on her winter-sharp face.

"Will you let me _finish_—"

"No! Get off my bloody doorstep!" She slams the door in his wet, angry face, heaving shuddering breaths.

He hammers on the wood, shouting at her, demanding she open up. She presses her hands against her ears, trying sosohard to shut him out. (but it's not like she can keep out what's already inside of her, is it?)

"Don't _make_ me apparate in there, Victoire!" he yells.

She wrenches the door open, panting, shouting, "What the _hell _do you want?"

"_You_, you sodding idiot!"

Her lips press together and she swallows, her jaw trembling.

"I've been trying to tell you for months, Vicky—"

"Don't call me that," she hisses.

"—I've been sending letter after letter, I've been calling, I've been _ambushing _you after work, I even tried getting the girls to talk to you, for Merlin's sake," he rambles, exasperated. He keeps licking his lips as rainwater runs over them. "Honestly, Vicky—"

"Don't _call _me that!" Victoire snaps. "You have _no _right to call me that, you bastard."

"What the _hell_—?"

"I'm not _Vicky _anymore—I haven't been Vicky in _three years_," she seethes, and her eyes burn, and it's been eternities since she's let herself feel this much. "I stopped being _Vicky_—" She spits out the nickname. "—when you broke me."

Teddy takes a step forward, thrusting one finger towards the ground for emphasis as he says, voice rising, "It is _not _my bloody fault you turned into a heartless bitch after that—"

"_Oh_," she interrupts, speaking over him, "is _that _how you see it? You're just a damn innocent, are you?"

"I _tried_, Victoire, I tried_ bloody_ hard to make it work, and I tried as hard as I could to keep our friendship—"

"YOU GAVE UP!" she screams, the words burning past years of ice and denial and feeling nothing; they tear out of her throat. She feels blistering-hot tears building up along the rims of her eyes. "You_ bloody _gave up! Only a year, you said, Teddy, only a year!" Her voice cracks over the last word, but she can't stop now that the dam has broken. "What happened to that?" She's given up on frost and blizzards, given in to the heat and the fury and the all-encompassing flame, and she blazes like the heart of the sun as she steps forward, shoving him in the chest. The damp air fizzles around her. His skin burns.

"What _happened_ to 'I love you' and 'Forever' and-and all that shit?" She slams her hands against him again, and he staggers back under the force of _her_. "I believed _every_. _Single_. _Word_ of it! Every word, Teddy!" The tears roll over the edges of her eyelids and bead down her cheeks. She's broken, raging, and absolutely bursting with emotion, and so very, very beautiful. "And then you—you just couldn't do it? You needed your _freedom_?" Victoire steps forward again, and now both of them are past the overhang and standing in the ever-relentless London rain that just streams and pours with no regard to love or anger or heartbreak.

"_Yes_!" Teddy shouts, because maybe she's right and it's all his fault (it is), but he'll be damned before he breaks down and lets her win. "I needed time, and-and I needed to _explore_, and I couldn't _do _that with you!" His hair keeps changing from turquoise to orange to red to black to blue, the calico strands plastered to his forehead and dripping into his eyes. "As much as I loved you—_don't _you say _anything_, Vicky, I _did_, I loved you more than _anything_, even if you decided to make up some scenario where I was just toying with you or some total _shit _like that—as much as I absolutely and utterly _loved_ you, I couldn't _keep _you. I couldn't just leave you waiting around for me for a whole year while I went off and did who-knows-what." He jabs a finger at her, his eyes molten red-gold-amber. "_You_ didn't deserve that. I _wasn't _going to be that selfish! But I never, _never _wanted to just let it die. I still wanted my best friend, and I wanted to come back to you, but _no_, that wasn't good enough for Victoire bloody Weasley, she has to have _everything_ or _nothing at all_!"

And maybe he's right and it's all her fault (it is), but she'll break her neck to keep her chin up. "Don't turn this all on me, Teddy!" she sobs. "I was _seventeen_! I loved you and thought you loved me!"

"_I did_!" he bellows, stepping forward. Here they are again, so utterly close, separated by a couple inches and a year, but somehow worlds apart. "I _DO_!"

And this is the part where she breaks down and flings her arms around his neck and kisses him senseless as the rain crackles and pours around them. But she's still _Victoire Adrienne Weasley_, so instead she just screams into the elements and flees back into her apartment, where there is no feeling, no Vicky, no Teddy, and _certainly _no loving.

He stares at the door as it slams shut, and he stands blinking and shivering in the torrents until he can't stand anymore.

Then he leaves.

* * *

><p>Another year passes, and she still can't bring herself to read his letters or answer his calls. She starts to wonder if this is her being steadfast and righteous or stubborn and blind.<p>

* * *

><p>It's summer (it always is with them, isn't it?) and she's twenty-two and hasn't had a real relationship for a long, long time. He's twenty-three and still traveling and still chasing her with a fury.<p>

The whole family is together at the Burrow, so really, they're bound to bump into each other. (or maybe they're shoved, or maybe by now they're just stumbling in any direction they can find) The backyard is a swirling mess of redheads and brunettes and blondes and every other color imaginable that make up the Weasley-Potter-plus-Lupin-of-course clan, and by chance or by fate the strawberry-blonde part Veela and the turquoise chameleon man end up standing side by side under the walnut tree. There are no cups in hands this time to distract themselves with, nor an appetizer table they can talk to instead of each other.

"Vicky," he says, because no matter how much she pretends, that's who she'll always be to him.

"Teddy," she replies, because no matter how much it hurts, that's who he'll always be to her. "How was Italy?"

"Hot. Noisy. Colorful. Not bad." He peeks at her from the corner of his eye momentarily before fixing his gaze ahead, like her. "Glad I'm back, though. What about you? What you been up to lately?"

She sighs, and several thin silver-golden strands float away from her lips. "Nothing much, really. I'm still working at Madam Malkin's. It's decent pay."

"Still working on that clothing line of your own?" His now-golden eyes slide to her.

She smiles bitterly. "No. I gave up on that."

He shakes his head at the garden. "Too bad; I thought it was great."

"Yeah, well…I couldn't afford to keep deluding myself," she replies.

"Maybe it just needed some more time—another chance," he suggests. (and are they really talking about clothing lines anymore?)

"Not everything can be fixed with a second chance." She focuses her blue eyes on him as she says it, but they seem more like summer skies than winter ones, so just maybe she doesn't believe what she's saying.

He meets her gaze. "Some things can, Vicky."

And it's summer and he's _Teddy_, and she's _Vicky_, and they've alwaysalways been _Vicky&Teddy_, so why can't they go back to that?

So she makes up for all her wasted time, wrenches his head towards hers and kisses him senseless, spectators be damned.

There's a familiar gasp-squeal.

He smiles against her lips and kisses her back.


End file.
